


what is right and what is easy

by hipgrab (merrymegtargaryen)



Series: city of, city of light [2]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Mentions of Rape, Past Rape/Non-con, Referenced Child Molestation
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 05:00:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13803939
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merrymegtargaryen/pseuds/hipgrab
Summary: This thing with Kylo, it’s...nice. Kind of fucked up, probably, but nice. Like, she’s pretty sure that attorneys aren’t supposed to have sex with the file clerks, let alone have sex with the file clerks in the law firm, but they’re both consenting adults and he’d be a shit attorney if he couldn’t talk his way out of this one so, why not?Or, the law firm AU I promised jeeno a long-ass time ago.





	what is right and what is easy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [jeeno2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/gifts).



> PLEASE READ this before continuing!!
> 
> This fic mentions rape/child molestation. It never happens in the actual fic, but there's heavy discussion of it happening to a character offscreen, so please proceed with caution.

She’s sitting on the floor, surrounded by several mountains of files, when Phasma sweeps in. 

“Ren wants you to alphabetize the files in his office,” she says, not even looking at all the files around Rey.

Rey fights back a nasty response. “So that um...takes priority over updating the 2017 cases?”

Phasma just stares down at her.

“Okay,” Rey says. “I’ll get right on it.”

Phasma walks away without a word.

Rey finishes the 2017 cases, because she knows Phasma will just make life harder if she doesn’t finish them by the end of the day, and also because she knows Kylo Ren isn’t going to hold it against her if she doesn’t come running to alphabetize his files. It’s 3:30 when she finally makes her way to his office, her back sore from leaning over so many files for the last couple of hours. He’s too busy scowling at something on his computer to see her when she hovers in his doorway, so she gives his open door a small knock. “Hi.”

He looks up, the scowl disappearing from his face. “Oh. Hi.” 

She bites her lip.  _ Should _ she have come when Phasma first told her? “Um, you wanted me to...alphabetize your files?”

He glances at her files and then back to her. “Yes,” he says. Then again, “Yes, come in. And shut the door behind you, will you?”

“Yep.” Rey closes the door. 

“Now take off that shirt.”

She turns around. “Mr. Ren!”

“You heard me.” He leans back in his chair. “If you want to keep your job, you’ll take off that shirt and let me have my wicked way with you.”

She reaches up, unbuttoning her shirt while she slowly walks towards him. “Is that so?”

“Mm-hmm.” He’s already loosening his tie. Rey privately hopes that he’ll use it on her again.

.

This thing with Kylo, it’s...nice. Kind of fucked up, probably, but nice. Like, she’s pretty sure that attorneys aren’t supposed to have sex with the file clerks, let alone have sex with the file clerks  _ in the law firm _ , but they’re both consenting adults and he’d be a shit attorney if he couldn’t talk his way out of this one so, why not?

She’s been working at the law firm for three months and they’ve been hooking up for two of those months. At first they limited their interactions to the law firm, either in the file cabinets no one ever visits or in Kylo’s office, but lately Rey’s been spending time at his place. Not a lot, mind, but after a couple days of getting interrupted every time they tried to get in a quickie, Kylo had finally driven her to his place and released that pent-up sexual frustration, and it was just so  _ nice _ to fuck as much as they wanted for as long as they wanted as  _ loud _ as they wanted, so at least once a week Rey finds herself getting properly dicked down in Lake Point Tower. Yeah,  _ that _ Lake Point Tower. He’s fucking rich.

He’s just texted her to ask if she wants to come over to his place tonight, and she’s just responded with an affirmative, because the man is a sex god and also feeds her whenever she comes over and honestly, what kind of lay, when Phasma gives her new client files to build. She’s building one for Kylo, glancing at all of the documents to make sure they’re going under the right tabs, when something makes her stop. 

_ Accused of assaulting a minor. _

Rey knows she shouldn’t be doing this. As much as she’s allowed to handle the files, she isn’t allowed to snoop through them unless explicitly told to do so...and no one told her to do so. 

She also knows she shouldn’t be doing this because if she knew the particulars of every file she had to sort, she would be miserable. She has no illusions about this law firm and its clientele--she knows damn well that they defend white collar criminals and almost always get them off even though those white collar criminals are one hundred percent guilty one hundred percent of the time. And that’s exactly why Rey doesn’t look too closely at the files, because this job pays well and looks really good on a resume and she knows that if she reads the files she’ll just hate everything. 

But she can’t tear her eyes away from the page. The details are...awful. A mother is pressing charges against a family friend for assaulting her daughter at the family’s lake house. And Kylo is... _ defending _ the family friend.

She tries to stop thinking about it. Her day is almost over and then Kylo will take her to his enormous apartment and dick her down and she can just...what, ask him about it? Say, “Hey, I was looking through your client files and found something disturbing, care to explain?” No. she’s not going to ask him about it. She’s not even going to think about it.

Except, she can’t stop thinking about it. She accidentally sorts documents into the wrong tabs several times and is frustrated by the time she clocks out because a task that normally takes no time has taken the rest of her day. She waits for Kylo at their usual pickup spot three blocks from the office and barely looks at him when she gets into his car. He doesn’t notice because he’s watching traffic anyway, but when he puts his hand between her legs and begins stroking her, it becomes a little easier to forget her confused feelings. 

He fucks her from behind when they get to his place, her hands braced on the window. They both like this position, but as Rey looks out at the lake, she’s reminded again of the girl raped in a lake house, a girl whose life is ruined because of her father’s friend. A friend who Kylo is defending. 

“You seem distracted,” Kylo murmurs later, when they’re naked and sprawled on his bed. 

She hesitates, because how exactly is she supposed to bring this up with him? If at all? But no, she has to say something--she’ll never forgive herself if she doesn’t. “I had to build new client folders today.”

“Okay.” 

She rolls onto her stomach, fiddles with the ring she wears on her middle finger. It’s cheap, something she bought at a kitschy gift shop when she first moved to the city, but it’s lasted longer than most jobs and relationships. “I saw that um. That case with the...the guy who assaulted that girl?”

“Allegedly.”

She tenses. Or rather, becomes even tenser. “You’re defending him.”

“That’s my job, sweetheart.” He tucks an arm behind his head. 

She doesn’t know how to say what she wants to. “But...you  _ know _ he assaulted her...right?”

He sighs. “Why are we talking about this now?”

Why  _ are _ they?

“I don’t know.”

He shifts closer to her, traces the ridges of her spine. “You know what kind of people I represent. What  _ everyone _ at this firm represents. I don’t have to necessarily agree with their actions to defend them.”

“But he  _ raped _ a  _ twelve-year-old girl _ .” Rey moves to her side, propping up her chin as she meets his gaze head-on. “You know that’s like...fucked up, right?”

And the thing is, she wants him to just say, “Yes.” That’s it. Just...an acknowledgement. But...he doesn’t. He sits up, doesn’t meet her eye. “There are a lot of factors to consider.”

“Dude, what the  _ fuck _ ?” She sits up too, keeping the sheet around her chest because she feels...violated. 

“Why the fuck are you making such a big deal out of this?” His face is stormy, his back rigid. “You know what kind of people I defend. This shouldn’t be a surprise for you. You shouldn’t even be looking through my files like that anyway.”

“Go ahead and report me, I’m sure Phasma would love an excuse to fire me.” She kicks off the sheet, reaching for her clothes. 

“Are you storming out?” he asks, incredulous.

“I’m not storming out,” she lies. “I just...I can’t be naked around you right now.”

“Because I’m doing my job?” he says in a flat tone. “Really mature.”

It stings more than it should. They don’t... _ talk _ . And they especially don’t talk about  _ this _ . They fuck and sometimes they talk about fucking but that’s pretty much it. Rey has no illusions about Kylo Ren--she knows exactly what he does for a living and she knows what that living buys him. Of course he’s an asshole--that was never a question. She just didn’t expect him to be so  _ blatant _ about it. 

“Let me drive you home,” he calls from his bedroom when she’s halfway to the door, pulling on her flats.

“There’s a bus terminal right there,” she points out. “I’m fine, don’t...worry.” She feels churlish for throwing in that last part but doesn’t pause long enough to figure it out. She hears him moving in the bedroom but she doesn’t give him a chance to stop her, just grabs her bag and hoofs it out the apartment. He really is obscenely wealthy, she thinks with a grimace as she takes the elevator down. When she first found out he lived in the same building Peter Gallagher lived in in  _ While You Were Sleeping _ (which is, for the record, her favorite romantic comedy ever and her second favorite Sandra Bullock movie), she’d thought he was playing a prank on her. But no, he very much lived in this exorbitant building, its only real downside being its regrettable proximity to Navy Pier. She’s grateful for it now, though, as she crosses the street and walks straight to the terminal. 

Why is he  _ like _ this? It’s not as if she asked him to, like, hold a banner at the Women’s March or something. She just wanted him to admit that his client did exactly what he was accused of doing. Which...okay, wasn’t strictly what lawyers were supposed to do (at least, she thought so--she studied English in school, not law), but surely he had to  _ know _ ? 

But that’s the thing that bothers her most, she realizes on the interminably long ride home. He  _ does _ know. He just won’t say it. Not even to her. 

It’s not like they’re  _ dating _ . It’s not like he owes her anything. But like. They work together. And they’re obviously...intimate. She’s let him see her and do things to her that very few people have ever been allowed to see or do. Doesn’t that count for anything? At least a little transparency?

She tries not to think about it, and she’s almost successful. She spends hours watching  _ Friends _ while gorging on beef and broccoli with her roommates, and she almost forgets about him until she sees him in the office the next day, and just like that her sleepy haze is shattered.

He doesn’t approach her all that day, doesn’t find her in the file room or text her. They have days like this, where they’re too busy or stressed to find stolen moments, so it shouldn’t be a big deal. Except, of course, it is, because Rey has nothing to do all day but mindlessly put away files and she can’t stop obsessing about this. They’ve gone days at a time without interacting before, but the handful of hours gets to her.

_ Why can’t he just be a decent fucking person _ ?

She’s still fuming the next day, egged on by the lack of interaction from him, when her phone buzzes. It’s a text from Kylo, and it says just about the worst thing it could say.

_ So have you cooled off yet? _

Rey’s jaw clenches again. She shoves her phone back in her pocket, seething as she refuses to respond to the text. Fuck him.  _ Fuck him. _

.

It’s later, much later, when he comes into the file room. She doesn’t look up from her work, tensing when he pretends to look into the file drawer beside her. 

“I texted you,” he murmurs.

“I saw,” she bites out.

It’s his turn to tense now. “You’re still mad?”

“I’m not mad, I just don’t want to fuck a guy who won’t call a pedophile a pedophile.”

“Jesus Christ, Rey,” he snarls. “You’re punishing me for doing my  _ job _ ?”

“I’m not punishing you, I just don’t want to fuck you anymore!” Her hands are shaking. “I know you seem a little foggy on what defines sex and rape right now but not wanting to fuck you isn’t mean to be a punishment for you, it just means  _ I don’t want to fuck you _ .”

He looks remarkably as if she’s slapped him. She turns back to her work, staring but not really seeing the figures on the page in front of her. Finally, he stomps out of the room, the door slamming shut behind him. 

Rey drops her head against the cool metal of the file cabinet and exhales. She meant what she said, but a part of her wants to go after him. Which is dumb, right? That’s so dumb. He’s defending a  _ child molester _ and he thinks  _ she’s _ the problem. 

.

When she clocks out at the end of the day, she’s still in a bad mood, but her anger has cooled marginally. It’s a Friday, which means she has the weekend ahead of her to destress and put Kylo Ren out of her mind. 

A horn blares as she’s walking to the bus. She ignores it at first, assuming it’s the usual frustration at rush hour traffic, but the blaring is persistent and when she looks up she sees Kylo Ren idling on the curb, his window down as he looks directly at her. He’s not happy, but he’s not as angry as he was earlier, so Rey finds herself walking towards his car. 

“Rey,” he says, his hands gripping the wheel. “Please get in the car.” He pauses. “Please.”

She does, because he sounds  _ pathetic _ . His shoulders relax marginally as she gets in, closing the door behind her. 

“Thank you,” he says softly, putting the car in gear. 

“What do you want?” she asks, grateful that rush hour traffic is notoriously slow, so if she needs to, she can easily exit the vehicle. 

“I want you to explain this to me.” He’s looking at traffic, which Rey privately thinks is better for both of them. “You’ve never had a problem with my other clients, and we both know I’ve defended the scum of the earth. Why is this one bothering you so much?”

“Because of how it’ll be handled,” she says, trying to sound like a calm and rational creature. “When corporations scam clients out of money and when CEOs screw over their employees, they don’t do it again. Corporations get shut down and CEOs get fired, and even when they don’t, they lay low and don’t do it again. Much. But sexual assault is  _ different _ because assaulters don’t get shut down or fired. Okay, more of them do now,” she concedes when she sees his lips quirk. “But there are still  _ so many _ who get to walk away. And these men don’t just...lay low. They keep abusing.” Her voice is tight and teary now, but she forces herself to power through it. “This guy that you’re defending...you  _ know _ he raped that girl. And the justice system is so stacked against girls and women who have been assaulted that the odds of him getting off are astronomically high. And he’ll just keep doing it. He’ll keep raping girls and getting away with it.”

Kylo is quiet for a long moment. Which is fine, because Rey’s eyes are damp and she’s so afraid that her voice will shake if she speaks anymore. 

“Rey,” he says at long, long last. “Did you...did someone...do that to you?”

And now she is crying, furious at herself. He’s not going to take her seriously anymore. He’s going to think she’s some hysterical rape victim who’s projecting all her shit on him. 

“Rey,” he says again, and he sounds so  _ soft _ , gentler than he’s ever been with her.

“He was my foster father,” she bites out, and her voice is shaking but she knows he won’t stop saying her name in that soft way until she says something. “I wasn’t the first. I don’t think I was the last, either.”

His hand hovers, as if he wants to put it on her knee but thinks better of it. 

“My point is,” she says, forcing her voice to steady. “That this guy is just like my foster father, and he has enough money to pay a really good lawyer to cover up what he’s done. And this lawyer is going to be so good at defending his client that even that girl--that  _ twelve-year-old girl _ \--is going to spend the rest of her life wondering if it really happened or if she just made it up the way the lawyer said.”

Kylo’s hand retreats. “I’m not--”

“It’s what’s going to happen. She’s going to spend years in therapy. She’ll be afraid to have sex when she’s old enough because she had such a bad experience. Maybe she’ll never have sex again. She might develop anxiety, or start popping pills, or cutting, or trying to kill herself. And this is just one girl. Who knows how many he’s hurt before her? How many more he’s going to hurt if he gets away with this?” She takes a deep breath. “So that’s why I can’t in good conscious fuck you anymore, because if you defend him, you’re just creating more victims, and I can’t be with you.” The car suddenly feels too hot, too stifling. They’re at a red light on Michigan, so she opens the door.

“Rey!”

“I just can’t,” she says, not even looking back at him. “Bye, Kylo.”

She hops onto the sidewalk and makes for the red line station, blinking back tears. 

.

It’s a miserable weekend. Rey tries to distract herself by going out with her friends and filling every possible second with noise and people, anything to keep from thinking about Kylo. She doesn’t know how she’s going to face him on Monday. Maybe she should just quit. Not even show up, just ghost her way out of there. Of course, that means she’d be without a job. She’d have to go back to the temp agency and spend weeks waiting on an assignment. No thank you. 

On a whim, she applies to a few jobs anyway. She does this every now and then, ready for a better job to take her away from that godawful law firm. It never does, but she figures it can’t hurt. Maybe, miraculously, she’ll get a job right away and she’ll never have to walk into that law firm again.

But she doesn’t, and on Monday she does walk into the law firm, defeated. She sips her coffee while she sits in front of her work computer, taking her time checking her email. There are the usual reminders for supervisors to submit payroll information and several emails from Phasma with tasks for Rey to get to this week. There’s one that she almost skims over, a notice to the entire firm that someone is out of the office. The attorneys are  _ always _ taking days off to meet with clients. Ostensibly. Really, Rey suspects they’re just drinking on a yacht or some shit. She starts to delete it, but then pauses.

The name attached to it is Kylo Ren.

_ I will be out of the office Monday and Tuesday. You can reach me by phone or email. _

Rey feels...relieved. The less time she has to spend around him now, the better. Sure, it’s just delaying the inevitable, but she can at least mostly breathe easy while he’s gone.

When he comes back on Wednesday, it’s like they’re strangers. Like they’ve never looked at each other for more than five minutes, let alone memorized the way his cock feels inside her. Phasma doesn’t find Rey and tell her Kylo needs someone to alphabetize his files, nor does Kylo find her in the file room. She doesn’t wait for him in the usual spot after work and he doesn’t pick her up and take her to his place. Rey feels strangely empty and tries to remind herself that she doesn’t want to be with him.

Tries.

It’s just...you don’t just fuck someone nonstop for  _ months _ and then go cold turkey without feeling at least a little emotionally fucked up, right? Like, that’s valid. It’s valid that her traitorous body reacts when he rolls up his sleeves and she remembers him smirking up at her after eating her out on his desk and she gets so hot and bothered that she has to stumble to the women’s room and furiously rub herself off while praying no one walks in. 

Look she’s  _ trying _ , okay?

She isn’t used to breakups. Especially when there wasn’t  _ really _ a relationship to break up in the first place. You don’t break up with someone you’re just hooking up with. You just...stop hooking up. 

_ He’s defending a child rapist, _ she tells herself when her resolve is weak.  _ It doesn’t matter how many times he’s made you come, he’s scum. _

She knows this. It hurts anyway. 

_. _

It’s been about two weeks since Rey got out of Kylo’s car when Phasma looms over her desk. “I need you to do a missing file check.”

Rey barely contains her groan. Sometimes the attorneys take files without signing them out and the file clerks have to run around the office trying to find them. Rey hates this, and she strongly suspects Phasma only makes her do it because she likes giving Rey more unnecessary work. So Rey takes a print-out of missing files and begins her search. It takes a long time because god forbid the attorneys cooperate, but eventually she’s able to track down most of the files. She puts them away, taking her time because there’s one office she hasn’t checked yet and she really, really doesn’t want to go in there.

“Found all those files?” Phasma asks briskly when Rey comes back from an unnecessarily long bathroom break.

“Almost,” she says with a wide smile she doesn’t feel. 

“We need to find those files, Rey,” Phasma says, as if this task is of the gravest importance. “Please make sure it’s done.”

“Sure thing.” She takes the paper and walks, slowly but with determination, to Kylo’s office.

He’s on the phone when she pokes her head in, clutching the paper nervously, but his eyes widen when he sees her. He hits a button, muting the phone, and pulls it away from his ear. “Come in,” he says. “I’ll just be a minute. You can close the door.”

Rey wants to tell him that she’s just here to look for files, but he unmutes the call and snaps into the receiver, “I don’t fucking care, Greg, and if you want to keep that tacky-ass house in Malibu and that tackier-ass wife of yours, you’d better fucking put your money where your mouth is.”

Rey decides now is not the best time to say, well, anything, so she closes the office door and lingers nervously near it. Kylo is still snarling into the phone, but he waves her over and points to one of the chairs in front of his desk. Rey sinks into it, staring hard at her piece of paper. 

Finally, Kylo slams the phone down on the receiver. “Sorry,” he sighs. “I hate that guy.” His eyes take her in. “There’s something I need to explain to you.”

She thinks again of telling him she just came in for the files, but something about the way he’s looking at her makes her shut up. She gives a small nod, ready to hear whatever it is he has to tell her.

Kylo looks at his desk as if trying to find the words there. “What you said...the last time we spoke...people yell at me all the time. The people my clients screw over, mostly, but civil rights activists and social justice warriors...they hurl insults at me and I never let it get to me. It’s always been part of the job.” He shifts. “But what you said got to me. I couldn’t stop thinking about it. And no matter how I tried to justify it to myself...you were right. I had to take a few days to...sort things out. I thought about dropping the case.”

“Why didn’t you?” she asks without meaning to. 

He doesn’t seem upset at the question. “Because I realized that if I did, it would just go to someone else at the firm. Someone who wouldn’t hesitate to defend him. You know the attorneys here--they’re good. They’d get him off.”

Understanding floods Rey. “You don’t want him to get off,” she breathes. 

He shakes his head. “No. But it’s illegal to intentionally throw a case and people would know if I did. So I convinced him to plead guilty.” He’s already been leaning forward, but he moves, if possible, even closer to her now. “He’s serving fifteen years. He’ll get off early on good behavior, but...this was the best I could do, Rey.” His hand flexes on the desk. “This will follow him forever. Even when he gets out of prison, he’ll be a registered sex offender. He won’t get his cushy CEO title back. He won’t get any CEO job for a company that matters.”

And Rey understands. This was the best thing he could do under the circumstances. And he’s right--even if this man gets out in five years and gets a job, it won’t be a good one. No one will want to associate with a known child molester. 

But most importantly to Rey, that girl will know that someone heard her and believed her.

She looks away so that he won’t see the dampness in her eyes. 

“Rey,” he says, impossibly soft.

She opens her mouth to respond, but there’s a knock on the door. “Kylo? I need to speak with you.”

It’s Phasma. Rey starts to get up, but Kylo grabs her wrist. “Stay,” he orders. Then he calls, “Now isn’t a good time.”

“I’m sorry but this is really--” 

And to Rey’s horror, Phasma walks in. The other woman stops short at the sight of Rey visibly crying. Her lips curl. “Oh, I’m sorry,” she says, not sounding sorry at all. “I didn’t mean to interrupt. It can wait.” And she backs out of the room, shooting Rey a satisfied look.

“She thinks you’ve been yelling at me,” Rey says, smiling a little. Phasma won’t interrupt them again because the only thing she likes more than yelling at Rey is one of the attorneys yelling at Rey,  _ especially _ if that attorney is the notoriously temperamental Kylo Ren. 

“At least no one will interrupt us now,” he says wryly.

“We never used to worry about that,” she says before she realizes she’s saying it. 

They both flush. They’re not about to do... _ that _ again. Not right now, anyway. But Rey hasn’t dismissed the possibility.

“Could I,” he starts, still flushing. “Could I see you tonight?”

Rey’s eyes drop to her lap. Oh. 

“Not...like that,” he hurries to explain. “I meant...could we have...dinner? Or something?” 

Rey bites her lip. “Like...a date?”

He gives her a small smile. “Yeah.” The smile melts. “Unless...you don’t want…”

“No.” She wipes her eyes again. “No, yeah, that...would be nice.” 

And if they end up back at his place anyway...well, that would be nice too. 


End file.
